it's the hurt i hide that fuels the fire inside me
by pariswindspeed
Summary: She doesn't want anything but the world in the palm of her hands. He smirks, tells her she can have anything she wants. damon/caroline, caroline.


I wrote this a while ago, finally decided it was worthy of everyone's opinion today. /twitter: wesleyteeth

Title from Empty - Ray Lamontagne.

* * *

**it's the hurt i hide that fuels the fire inside me.**

Caroline does not believe in fairytales.

–;

Disney movies have always made her cry. She's only been able to get through The Lion King a couple of times and it rips at her fucking heartstrings. She can't handle Cinderella, has never seen Snow White, loves Beauty and the Beast – but the end result of all of these movies? They rip her heart to pieces.

Caroline cries easily. And maybe it's the little girl in her who still believes that she _should _believe in a fairytale, that makes her cry. Or it's because it's blatantly obvious that nothing is ever what it seems. And Walt Disney has never gotten it right.

(And she knows that's a fucking lie because Walt was the only one who gave Belle exactly what she wanted.)

–;

Caroline does not want to grow old.

–;

She's always seen her mother as a woman of power. She doesn't know if that's something she's looked up to all of her life or something she's so sickeningly accustomed to that she has a struggle with her own.

Either way, Liz Forbes has enforced power since Caroline was the tender age of nothing.

Caroline remembers always seeing her mother stressed out; whether it be about something one of her deputies did or where her father decided he was going to stay the night. She always remembers the crow's feet just at the corner of her eyes and her leathery skin after a long day at work. She remembers her mother's tired eyes and the shakiness of her voice and she remembers when her mother turned forty.

She doesn't know if it makes her a selfish bitch of a daughter who's never been grateful for anything or just a strikingly honest person, but she thinks her mother's ugly.

Thinks this cruel, cruel world has made her mother old and ugly and starch white with fear sometimes.

Caroline's never wanted to be like her mother.

–;

Caroline does not want children.

–;

All she remembers about being young – besides her mother working all of the time and her daddy stepping out on his family – is that she hated it.

She hated going to school. She hated coming home from school. She hated wearing frilly dresses and sitting in the mayor's office having to play with Tyler Lockwood. She hated not being able to bake with her mother on Saturdays or going to the park with her dad on Sundays. Caroline hated being a child more than almost anything. Mostly because it was the biggest letdown that she's ever suffered. But it's not like she could have done anything about it. All she could do was endure it and patiently wait until she was thirteen and being called an adolescent.

She does not want children because she does not want them to hate being five, six, seven, or eight. She does not want them to look back on their lives and think their mom was a selfish bitch who did nothing but better her career and leave them at home by themselves. (Maybe some of her own childhood problems are creeping back up.)

She does not want them to hate her. She does not want them to hate themselves. She does not want them to feel like she did.

–;

Caroline does not want a family.

–;

Any good memory she has of her family has been washed down the drain or pushed so far back in her mind that she doesn't even recognize it when it tries to creep back up.

All she knows about her family is that she never really had one. And how can she want another if she never had one in the first place?

She remembers her daddy's tearful goodbye and his new boyfriend and wondering that she and her mother must not have been good enough for him. She remembers her mother's work schedule always being tacked next to the calendar in the kitchen and the phone calls late at night calling her in, and always being shipped to Elena's or Bonnie's because mom had to work and yeah, since dad stepped out, no one can take care of poor little Caroline.

She does not want a family because she does not want to pawn them off onto someone else, she doesn't want to mess it up. She can't want what she's never had.

–;

She does not.

(want any of it.)

–;

So she willingly becomes a vampire.

Fresh out of high school and well on her way to becoming her mother's worst nightmare, she meets Damon Salvatore. He's fucking gorgeous and his lips are amazing and she almost drowns in his eyes when he looks straight at her and tells everything he wants to do to her.

She fucking falls apart in seconds when he goes down on her. _His mouth, _she thinks. Oh, her mother would be so appalled.

Caroline tells him how she wants nothing to do with a fairytale wedding – doesn't want a wedding. She doesn't want a family with kids and a big white house. She doesn't want anything but the world in the palm of her hands.

He smirks when she tells him this, runs his finger down her spine and tells her she can do anything she wants.

She doesn't do anything stupid and tell him that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said about her. (Even if it is. She does not want to ruin a good thing with childish heartthrobs and _feelings._)

Her mother disapproves; _"I disapprove, Caroline."_

But Caroline does not care. Because if there's one thing her mother cannot hold against her is being a good example for anything remotely close to normal. Nothing in Caroline's life has ever been normal. _"He's at least five years your senior," _she scolds.

Caroline laughs. Her mother's always sounded too old for her own good.

Obviously, she does not listen to her mother.

And her life goes off without a hitch. Caroline is eighteen and a high school graduate and gets amazing orgasms and all is right in the world.

She does not feel anything remotely close to falling or losing her head or footing or _anything._

She feels good and she feels refreshed and she feels like she can do anything _("You can, Care." _Damon whispers.)

One night when they're laying wrapped in a sheet she asks him where he came from. Just, one minute she's eating her Wheaties and trying to not to desperately ask for an escape and then the next he's right beside her and he's seductive and _his eyes, his mouth, his smile._

He chuckles and tells her she doesn't really want to know where he came from.

She thinks that's stupid. Because obviously she does if she asks.

He gets this look in his eyes when she bites those words back at him and it's something like passion in his eyes and in his voice when he finally tells her.

She does not flip out and she does not laugh at him. Just says something like, "prove it," in a voice that's all too challenging and smug.

She doesn't know if she believed him or not, beforehand. But after he's taken his mouth away from her neck and wiping away any leftover blood, she'll believe anything he tells her.

And she knows he's not doing that whole compelling thing. He tells her, after, all about that. And his speed. And his ring. And his nature of wanting to rip throats out. And his wariness of stakes and fires.

He tells her everything and when he's done and not being sentimental or _are you okay?_ She thinks she fucking loves him or something. Because seriously, no one else would her even tell her this in the first place. And secondly, he doesn't want to know if she's okay. Doesn't really care. And she thinks finally someone isn't walking on egg shells around her.

She listens intently when he tells her all about turning it off. And she doesn't even have to ask what _it _is because she knows. She's seen it in his troubling eyes and behind his smirk. He can turn his emotions off if he really wants, and why wouldn't he? _Why wouldn't she?_

She asks him what it's like to be over a century and half years old and he chuckles, tells her stories about Paris, and the wars, and his days as a writer. _("You'll never read anything I've ever written. Trust me.")_

And she does – trust hm.

She trusts him enough to let him feed her his blood, snap her neck, and get her a good feed once she's back from the dead.

(It really does happen so sadistically. She loves the poetry of it all; wonders what her mother would think about all of her shenanigans.)

–;

When Caroline comes to, all red-eyed and bloodthirsty, she thinks the most appealing part about being a vampire is that she can't live in a fairytale, grow old, have children, or have a family.

Yeah, she thinks that's the best part, as she walks hand in hand with Damon around the world for eternity. She doesn't have to feel anything she doesn't want to, she doesn't have to do anything she doesn't want to. She doesn't.


End file.
